AFSCME News

A new Center for American Progress (CAP) report describes how state and local governments, having already shed critical public service jobs since the Great Recession, have lost 695,000 more since the onset of the pandemic.

Because the services these jobs deliver are critical to society’s functioning, state and local governments must invest in job creation.

The American Rescue Plan, which AFSCME members helped make a reality and which President Joe Biden signed into law a year ago, provided $350 billion in funding to states, cities and towns.

Today, following President Joe Biden’s nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to serve on the United States Supreme Court, AFSCME President Lee Saunders issued a statement praising the historic selection.

AFSCME mourns the loss of Mildred Wurf, a beloved member of our union family, a pioneering District Council 37 educator and the widow of former AFSCME president, Jerry Wurf. Mildred Wurf died on Dec. 29 at the age of 95.

Striketober and Strikesgiving are over, but worker strikes are still going strong. As I write this, Kellogg’s workers are holding the line in Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Memphis. Alabama miners are heading into their ninth month of standing up to Warrior Met Coal. And the wave of worker actions demonstrating power and the fight for fairness continues to rise.

AFSCME President Lee Saunders on Monday joined President Joe Biden and members of his administration, as well as a bipartisan group of lawmakers, for the signing ceremony of the historic Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.